


and another story

by nextgreatadventure



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-12
Updated: 2011-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-27 05:57:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nextgreatadventure/pseuds/nextgreatadventure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>truths and lies and how hidden things are never really hidden on this goddamn spacestation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and another story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [universe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/universe/gifts).



> first b5 fic, whaaaaaat. set early-mid season two.

-

 

Susan Ivanova cannot handle her thoughts being read for any reason whatsoever. In fact, she cannot so much as handle a piercing stare from anyone, let alone a telepath, and doesn’t everyone know it, because that’s how she came to throw one out of a third story window on Io.

Talia Winters is helping them broker some information about a recent incident involving an illegal shipment of data crystals and if you ask Susan, everyone’s got their panties in a bunch for no reason. There are more important things to be doing on this base, she thinks, like saving lives, for example.

Susan is cautious of having the Corps around on a good day and better safe than sorry, right? So for the entire four days of the semi-investigation she thinks in nothing but Russian. It’s a little rusty after years of non-use, like an old pair of shoes, but she can still employ most of her favorite curse words and anytime she has to speak or interact directly with Ms. Winters, who has been given the go-ahead to surface-scan whomever she deems necessary, she lets a foreign diatribe rush forth. It’s not directed at Ms. Winters specifically; Susan is just sick and damn tired of PsiCorps invading and claiming jurisdiction over every little thing on the station, and so maybe she’s just letting herself have some of her own trademark sardonic fun at the Corps representative’s expense.

The Corps representative in question is…interesting, Susan thinks, and she’s never really done anything offensive to Susan besides wear that badge. She can’t deny that the woman has a voice even _she_ wonders about, and she doesn’t really blame Garibaldi for wanting to hear it in a decidedly less professional setting. But she’s still Corps, and so Susan feels justified in being a smartass. It’s the principle of the thing.

Talia looks at her oddly after that first (and then second, but if she’s picked anything up she’s used to it by the third) interaction. By the end of the fourth day the affair is mostly settled and Susan is running over the duty roster as Sheridan sees Talia to the door.

“Thank you, Ms. Winters,” he’s saying, friendly as can be, because John Sheridan is nothing if not the most amiable person in the galaxy. Ivanova rolls her eyes fondly. “You’ve been a real asset these past few days.”

“Just doing my job, Captain.”

“Tell me again what you were saying about Amsterdam, earlier?”

“Oh, I spent a year there before coming to Babylon 5, doing basically what I’m doing here. They transferred me because they wanted to make use of my other skillset.”

“Oh, what’s that?”

Talia’s voice seems to grow noticeably louder as she replies. “I speak four Earth languages, Captain. P5s are encouraged at a young age to learn other languages and acquire various commercial business skills.”

Sheridan chuckles. “Well I can see how that might be a selling point on this station, in particular.”

Susan starts to listen more closely to the exchange, now. She doesn’t look up but she’s started to tap her index finger against the pad in rapid succession.

“It is,” Talia agrees. “But unfortunately I don’t get to apply the knowledge as often as I’d like. English seems to be the business language of choice around here and anyway, emotions are usually fairly easy to read without lingual context.”

A beat passes and she continues casually, “I did recently have the opportunity to practice my Russian.” And her eyes find Susan’s. “That was nice.”

“I’ll bet it was,” Sheridan is saying, but neither woman hears it because they are both too busy staring (glaring, smirking) at one another.

Talia has a smile on her face that could slice through metal and Susan is torn between whether she should burst into a slow round of applause or throw the woman out of a third story window.

She is either never going to speak to Talia Winters again or she is going to take her down to the casino and buy her the most gigantic Jovian Sunspot this side of Jupiter. She’s still deciding.

 

~

 

John Sheridan keeps a small leather-bound book that used to house box scores and the odd telephone number before he’d left Earth.

Susan Ivanova sees him take it out of his desk sometimes. She watches him hold it like a trophy and she watches him scribble inside of it for hours with his favorite blue pen. Out of the corner of her eye she watches him consult it whenever he has to give a big war-making speech, and sometimes she catches him reading it like a novel on slow days at the station, feet propped up on his desk, a big goofy smile on his face.

“Whatcha readin’, Captain?” Susan asks one day.

“Oh, nothing,” Sheridan tells her distractedly, but it doesn’t look like nothing because that smile hasn’t gone anywhere.

Susan doesn’t mean to pry or anything but her curiosity gets the better of her when Sheridan gets called to the medlab later and the notebook gets left open on his desk. Wide open, just lying there innocently, beckoning her to take a tiny peek.

She takes a few cautious steps forward and peers down onto the page. Words like “darkness” and “light” and “hope” and “forever” pop out at her and her eyebrows ruffle like upset feathers. She nudges the book with an index finger for a better angle and keeps reading.

“ _No race can be truly intelligent without laughter._ ” This line has a date scribbled beside it: “ _dinner, Feb. 18th, 2259_ ”.

What the hell was all this?

She flips a page.

“ _We are star stuff, we are the universe made manifest…sometimes the universe requires a change of perspective._ *”

Sheridan had marked an asterisk beside this one, and baffled, Susan searches for its twin at the bottom of the page.

“* _the way her face lit up when she said this, I felt like I was soaring, like I could believe it, because I thought I could see the very same star stuff in her eyes_ \--”

“--oh, my god.” Susan slams the thing shut. “I do not want to know.”

 

~

 

Nobody really understands how they all ended up having drinks together but the point is that they _are_ having drinks together, that they are all seated around a rickety table and it’s not as awkward as Susan thought it would be. But maybe that is just because she and Sheridan are actually drinking, while Delenn and Talia sip politely at glasses of water (or in Delenn's case, that funny looking purple liquid she's always offering when they visit her quarters).

She and Sheridan pull themselves away from the news monitor, from the scattered conversation, a while later for another round of drinks. Delenn lets a few moments of silence pass before she turns to Talia.

“You are a telepath,” she smiles.

Talia feels suddenly like she’s being interviewed for a position she never knew she wanted (and suddenly, she wants it desperately). “Yes, ambassador.”

“And you are Commander Ivanova’s friend, yes?”

Talia falters slightly. “I wouldn’t necessarily say that.”

“You are enemies?” Delenn sounds innocently inquisitive, but also like she’s trying to lead Talia to some grander conclusion that she doesn’t yet understand.

“Not...exactly.“

“You act like enemies,” Delenn discerns, watching Talia’s face like reading stage cues, “but you do not want to be enemies.”

Talia begins to sip her water quite intently.

“I do not believe she wants to be your enemy, either, Miss Winters.”

The telepath starts to smile but catches herself. “I think maybe she doesn’t know what she wants.”

“But you do,” Delenn says. “You know what you want.” It is not so much a question as it is a statement, not so much a guess as it is a truth, and Talia starts to feel her chest tighten. She’s usually the one making other people feel uncomfortable about the things they haven’t yet admitted to themselves, and it feels strange to be caught in a role-reversal.

Talia meets the Minbari ambassador’s wide, bright gaze, and lies.

“I don’t think that I do.”

She wonders immediately after why she did it, because Delenn just smiles knowingly and turns back to her pale lavender drink. Even if she’d said ‘bullshit’ right out loud, or whatever the Minbari-equivalent sentiment would be, her disbelief could not have been clearer.

 

“Okay, we’re off duty now, so spill it.”

John furrows his brows at Ivanova and taps his chit against the bar top. “What are you talking about, Commander?”

“Listen,” she says seriously. “You can trust me. I mean, you _know_ you can trust me. You _have_ to trust me, don’t you? I swear it's written somewhere in the protocol.”

The captain looks bewildered.

Susan rolls her eyes. Tries to clarify. “Obviously something is going on. You’ve been spending a lot of time with Ambassador Delenn lately.”

John’s eyes widen marginally. He feels like maybe he's starting to sweat.

“I mean if something is going on with Earthdom or if the alliances have started to shake loose I think I have the right to know,” she continues, and John’s face relaxes almost comically. Susan notices, and squints her eyes at him.

“Wait. You—what was that look?”

“What look?” John asks, maybe a little too quickly.

“The—the look you just—“

The moment John clears his throat she is effectively cut off. “Listen, nothing is up, all right? If we had a situation you’d be the first to know, Commander. Well. Second to know, anyway.”

Susan still looks suspicious. “What did you think I was talking about?”

John purses his lips. “I have no idea,” he says, thinking of the dress Delenn had worn to dinner last night, the way her hand had slipped into his when he walked her back to her quarters. The curl of her hair against her shoulder and all that candlelight-bathed skin. "Nope. No clue."

When they get back to the table, a look passes between Delenn and Susan and then between Talia and Sheridan; between Susan and Talia and Sheridan and Delenn.

Susan finally raises her glass. "Cheers."

 

-


End file.
